An enterpreneur story

Abasi is my former student from Kenya who graduated four years ago. Yesterday he came back and talked about his own startup company. Following is his story that I want to share with you:

Abasi was excited as he told me: “I learned a lot from your entrepreneur program, especially about the opportunity in developing country. When I returned to Kenya, instead of working for IT companies and have a good paying job, I started my own company. Kenya is a big country and agriculture is the main occupation with many farmers. People who work in rural area often do not have information about market trends, weather data, crops prices etc. so they rely on distributors to provide them with this information. If the distributors give them wrong information, their crops can be ruined and they could bankrupt. If they plant the wrong crops and the price goes down by harvest time, they can lose their entire savings. If they do not know about weather forecast, as they plant their crops early before the rain come, they could lose all their seeds in the drought. There is so much information that farmers need in order to succeed and most of them are based on having the right data, the most current information, so they can make the right decision.”

“Knowing this opportunity, I create an agriculture mobile application to provide information for them. Although Internet broadband is available in many cities but not yet reach rural area. However mobile is very popular as many people now own smartphone. That is why I start my own company specializes in developing mobile apps for farmers. From your teaching that customer is the first thing anyone must start, I identify farmers who live in rural area with smartphone as customers. My proposition to them is agriculture information, as I solve their problem of needing this information for their farms. And of course the distribution channel is the website where customer can reach my company via smartphone.”

I asked: “You learned well but how do you make money by just providing this information?”

Abasi laughed: “I never forget that you always insist in your class the importance of having revenue. After all, it is a business. I contact seeds companies and create an online business in my website where farmers can buy seeds from these companies without have to go through middle-distributors. For every transaction, I receive 5% from seeds companies which is better than pay middle-distributors because these people often raise seeds price by 10% to 20%. Basically, I cut out the middle people by fully automated transactions between seeds companies and farmers. The seeds companies are happy because they can reach more farmers on-line; farmers are happy because they can buy seeds cheaper and seeds are shipped to them via post office or transportation companies (Note: In Kenya, Bus companies do deliver merchandises in rural area.) I also contact markets so farmers can sell their crops to them based on current market prices. Farmers know exactly the market price on that day as I update them every hour, so no one can cheat farmers because they know how much their crops can be sold on the open market. In Kenya, many seeds companies are also selling crops so this connection works very well for both. Of course I also collect 5% for every online transaction that use my website.”

I asked: “I am very happy that you are doing well, but there are other things too.”

Abasi laughed out loud: “No I never forget what you have taught me. Every business is a relationship so I want to make sure that all customers are satisfied with my services. I have 24 hours online assistance where they can contact my company at anytime to get sales or purchasing status via phone, emails or text messages. I also have personal assistance where farmers can talk to agriculture experts, who are agriculture students that can help answer their questions. I keep a direct relationship with all customers and provide all the necessary means for them to farm their land.”

Abasi continued: “I also do not forget about key resources factor in your class. No company can do well without people so I care for my employees by paying them good salary and given them stock option. I hire computer graduates to maintain my website and develop mobile applications. I hire agriculture graduates to support customers with their expertise. I also partner with seeds companies as well as markets that sell crops. Basically I follow your all your practical instructions and today my company is one of the largest on line agriculture businesses in Kenya.”

He proudly declared: “Basically my company is now the “Amazone.com” in agriculture. That is why I return and thank you for providing me with such practical knowledge about entrepreneurship.” He showed me several pictures of the awards that he received from his government: “There is good news; government economic data found that in the past two years, on the average, rural village's income has increased by 30%, approximately $ 385,000 US Dollars. Many farmers saw their lives improve as their profit increased 20% to 35%. Many attributed their successes to the automation of online business. Several farmers mentioned my company so I received several awards such as “Entrepreneur of the year” and “Economic contributor of the year”. Now more than ever, I believe that Information technology is the key driver for the economy as it opens many opportunities for people and helps create progress in the rural area of developing countries.”

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University

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